Black Wall Street

n 1921 on a day that we all know as Memorial Day, tragedy stuck the town of Greenwood in Tulsa, Oklahoma. It is a day those black Americans of Tulsa would never forget and the racist mob that destroyed it would try to erase from everyone’s memory. Greenwood was a town thriving with black business owners, black residents, and black consumers. So much so that Booker T. Washington named it “Negro Wall Street”. Greenwood was rich in culture, faith, music, fashion and most of all currency. There was in fact more black millionaires in Tulsa than in the entire USA. The Friscoe railroad tracks divides Greenwood likes its racial divide, a line between blacks and whites. When a young black man named Dick Rowland was accused of assaulting a white woman on an elevator those lines were crossed. The rising tensions, conflict, and jealousy of this affluent black town would not only be targeted but attacked. This black community rallied together to stop the attempted lynching of Dick Rowland. Lynching talks had come with support from the corrupt police chief, officers, the KKK, the hate organization the “Knights of Liberty”, and a racist mayor at Tulsa’s city hall. Black residents were attacked and burned out of their homes and businesses. Some of them losing their lives others losing their livelihoods. Against all odds they fought valiantly against the evil powers that be. The spirit and pride of Greenwood is the pride of the entire race and of an entire country. You can kill the body but never the spirit of BLACK WALL STREET.